Family Heirlooms

You may be getting tired of hearing about my digging into the past, but that is what my life is all about these days. Did I say this was addictive??

Not only have I been digging online at ancestry.com and familysearch.com, and comparing the information on both sites, I have been going through some old photo albums that Mom put together, as well as some other memorabilia and heirlooms. In the process I have gained a little bit of insight about my mother when she was just out of high school, and dating my dad.

My parents had this little box. . . .

Age and bad storage over the years have both been a little hard on it. The leather straps on both sides have broken. I often wonder what the original intent was for this box. My parents stored a few old legal papers and some old income tax files from the early 1940's. Those are interesting to go through! Amazing what little money they made all year and yet able to live fairly well, even as my mother did not work outside the home. She did raise a huge garden, and they butchered their own meat so always had food to eat. From pictures I see they dressed well, too, though probably did not have lots of clothes like we tend to have today.

I remember looking in it as a child and there were still ration stamps of WWII. If I remember right, they were mine, but I was just a baby so several were not used, or else they had not been used before the rationing was lifted. Sadly, my kids seem to have destroyed or lost them as they are no longer in there.

Inside the lid there was obviously a snapshot at one time. I don't remember a picture there, but assume it might have been who used the box in the beginning. There is a shallow tray first, and the pictures show it first in the box and then removed and sitting in front of the box.

Some other papers found in here are a copy of Mom's step-grandmother's will and a copy of court papers showing that Mom's uncle was contesting the will and the final ruling, including the accounting of the estate income and expenses, and how much each heir received. The uncle got the largest sum, so he won. I find these some neat pieces of family history.

I also found some other things of interest but I am going to save that for the next post. . . . . . .

(I love serials, don't you?)